


On The Bonnie, Bonnie Banks

by QueenElizabeth



Category: British Actor RPF, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who RPF, Peter Capaldi - Fandom, Scottish Actor RPF, The Musketeers (TV) RPF, The Thick of It (TV) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, F/M, Glasgow, Romance, Scotland, Sexual Content, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-03-30 03:09:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3920701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenElizabeth/pseuds/QueenElizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Spending a very romantic holiday weekend in Scotland, with Peter Capaldi</p><p>Please note that while this can be considered an RPF, this is an AU fic. Only the real person character, Peter Capaldi, has been nicked from reality, and placed in this alternate universe, wherein he dates the reader. Got it? Great. Let's have some fun then.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheCapaldianEmpress01](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCapaldianEmpress01/gifts).



> This fic may wander in rating from teen on up to mature, and might even visit explicit. It's a long holiday weekend. Things happen, okay? Ratings will always be updated to reflect content currently available.

“Hey… pssst… sleepyhead.” Peter drew open the curtain and leaned in close to kiss your forehead and cheek, and gently continued, “I’ve got coffee… come on, _a gràdh_. It’s nearly half ten…”

“What? Hmm… oh. Okay… Wow. I haven’t slept like that in an age,” you opened your eyes and breathed drowsily, pulling your body upward to sit in the indulgent fluffiness of your luxury bed.

“I made coffee,” he repeated softly, as he carefully poured you a cup from the hotel press and placed it into your hands and sat next to you on the bed.

“Not tea?” you asked, bleary-eyed and teasing, at the un-Scottish touch to this epically Scottish weekend.

“Not after last night,” he smiled. “This morning calls for coffee. Strong coffee.” You returned a sweet smile, and placed a hand on his shoulder, giving it a loving squeeze before lazily sliding it up to caress his cheek, to trace a path with your fingers, up and behind his ear, tucking a wayward curl back into place.

“It really does, doesn’t it?” you say with a light laugh, your entire body heavy from finally having relaxed, fully, in a way which never quite happens when you are deep into the daily demands of home. The chuckle made your back and your abdomen reveal a vague soreness, the result of having laughed harder and longer than you had in years, on the late night before.

“It was worth it though,” you said, looking into the endless blue-green of your boyfriend’s eyes, of your best friend’s eyes. “Your friends here are amazing, and hilarious. I can’t believe I waited so long to come and properly meet everyone,” you took a long sip of your coffee and placed it down on the bedside table before scooting closer to Peter and continuing devilishly, “plus now I have old stories for ages and ages… just consider the blackmail!”

He slammed his eyes closed in a surge of shyness and amused embarrassment, his entire face wrinkling into a hearty laugh as he covered it with his hands and shook his head. He finally managed an, “I _knowwww_ … what was I thinking bringing you to Glasgow?” He wrapped his arms around you for a long embrace which melted into sentiment as it lingered, the warmth between you bubbling to the surface the longer you both held on. He added, his voice softer and raspier than before, “you know, I am certainly glad I did though.”

You closed your eyes and nuzzled your face into your favorite place in the universe -- the spot where his neck meets his shoulder, easily available to you apart from the wrinkly tissue-weight t-shirt he’d put on when he awoke -- and inhaled. He smelled like your haven. He smelled like home. He was every small comfort that made you know that everything would be alright. He was the gentle rain falling on your roof in the English summertime, the embrace of slumber after a long night’s spent staring at the ceiling. He was the perfect cup of tea in the moment it reached your lips, the relief that washed over you when the wheels under your aeroplane found the earth again. “I am too…” you whispered, as he slid his hand smoothly up your back to rest, open, against the back of your neck. He leaned in and kissed you simply, matter-of-factly. He loved you with everything he had, and that was just that.

As you relaxed back away from one another, Peter motioned over to your coffee and urged you, “don’t forget your coffee. Wake up and come and meet me in the shower. We have a big day ahead.”

You smiled broadly and drained the cup of its revitalizing nectar, eager to follow this man, your fantastical, offbeat self-described geek; your experimental stand-up comedian; your self-taught master thespian; your tongue-in-cheek god of punk rock; he of cacophonous laughter and bottomless joy; he of a thousand adventures all at once, he; your universe, your everything… anywhere he wanted to show you.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating updated to Mature.

_“I love you when you’re good good good good goooooood, I love you when you’re bad, badbadbad bad baaad… Do what you wanna do. Oh lord I love you, Susanne.”_

You walked into the gleaming white marble palace which was your en suite for the night, to find Peter’s daily classic rock concert in full swing. Lou Reed today. Yesterday was The Beatles, and heaven only knew what tomorrow might bring. You chuckled to yourself softly as he cracked open the heavy glass shower door to welcome you, plumes of hot, vaguely lavender-scented steam wafting through the room. You dropped your logoed dressing gown to the floor before taking a moment to pause at the impressive framed mirror which engulfed an entire wall.

You took a look at your eyes, sleepy, completely natural and makeup-free. You patted the soft skin beneath them with your fingers and thought to yourself, “feck, I’m getting old… maybe I’m dehydrated. I’m most definitely dehydrated. Let’s see, long flight, tea, scotch, more scotch, coffee… I need to remember to drink more water today. Gods, I am tired…” Ending your self-pity party, you broadened your view to include your entire naked body, and added, “I’m tired, but I am not old. I look pretty damned good, in fact.” You took a glance over your shoulder across to the shower wall, which was rapidly losing the misty cover of condensation which enveloped it when you first walked in. You continued, “and he… looks pretty okay himself.” “ _Ungh,_ ”you groaned aloud. 

“Come on, darling... you’re letting all my heat out!” he called to you, snapping you out of your state.

“I’ll bring you some heat, Peter Capaldi,” you teased, and took a step to join him inside the deluge.

He smiled broadly with a throaty laugh, and countered, "is that right?" At the same time, he turned to watch you step into the frame of the shower and click the door shut. That shut him up, alright. His previous laugh became a very different smile indeed, as he drank in the sight of your form: soft and gently curving, unflinchingly feminine, real, erotic. Yours. He licked his lips and forced his eyes back upward to meet yours.

One of your favorite things about Peter was his voice. Of course, he was a professional voice actor, and the command he held over his range and tone was fascinating to observe. He could do a variety of accents and dialects with ease. You regularly asked him to read aloud, anything, from your favorite novel to your favorite takeaway menu, and he'd have seven different voices for each. It was sometimes too easy to forget just exactly what he sounded like as simply himself. But when you were alone, there were no cameras, no scripts, no pretense. It was in these moments when you loved his voice the most: gentle but intense, resonant and deep. Lazier and more Glaswegian when no was was looking. As smoky and languid as a fine single malt. It was in this voice that he addressed you with a gravelly purr -- "well, you were certainly worth the wait."

You stepped closer to stand directly in front of him as the heat of the spray began to wash over you. He held your gaze in his own as he reached up to smooth his wet hair back from his face with both hands. He looked different in the shower. Younger, with his springy grey curls softened and darkened, pushed away from his face. The effect only served to intensify the blue of his eyes. He was utterly magnetic. Without thought, you slipped your arm around him, under his left arm, and pulled him down into a kiss. You pulled his chest close against yours. The water beat down against your back as you kissed him passionately. Lips exploring each other. The rest of the world was perfectly frozen in the moment. Nothing existed outside those walls. As his arms wrapped around you tightly, you could feel the water cease to fall between you. You blended into one as the delicious dance of your kiss continued. He slid his hands down to grip your hips as you allowed your own fingers to work their way up, slipping into his wet hair and digging into the warm muscles along the back of his neck.

You relaxed back down from standing on your toes to allow your feet to rest on the warm tiles beneath you.  As you shifted, your hands slid down to rest against his sinewy shoulders. He bent down to follow your lips as you did this, not ready to break from your kiss. Though eventually he did, and opened his eyes to meet yours once more.

He seemed to have so much to say to you, behind those expressive eyes. Eyes which you’ve spent hours lost in; eyes which you can see encouraging you to go on when you simply close your own and look for them in your time of need. He tightened his fingers around your hips with a gentle squeeze. Playfully, wordlessly, his face betraying any attempt he might have thought he was making at hiding his desire. He placed a loving touch against the side of your face as he pushed your hair back toward the messy bun you'd piled atop your head. He wanted you. But he also loved you. Gods, how he loved you. This much was palpable.

He picked up the bottle of lavender shower gel and emptied some into his hands, massaged it into your shoulders. Down your arms. Across your breasts. Your stomach, which he regularly worshipped, sometimes despite your protest. You would tell him it had never been the same since you gave birth years ago, and he would say, “Good.” He would tell you about ancient art and about the beauty of fertility. He would tell you your body was holy and cover it in kisses.

He motioned for you to turn around so he could do the same across your back. Down to your hips, the tops of your thighs. He always took a wonderfully long time on your butt, and smiled the whole time, regardless of the conversation. You could wash yourself, of course, but this was a holiday. And if anyone could find you a person who fancied men and didn’t want this one lathering them up, then you would certainly think them mad. You let the spray rinse away the bubbles, and turned back to face him.

After a couple of years of dating, it didn't matter: one look from this man could do most anything to you. Turn you on, thrill you, melt your heart into a pile of warmed butter. Often all three at once, and it would never be any other way. "Do you know how much I adore you?" He asked. All three this time. You felt a charge tumble through your body. A tightness in your chest. A dull and delicious ache in your wrists and hands. In your gut. Between your thighs.

“I have some idea,” you replied, with a playful smirk. He smiled and looked down at the shower floor. Licked his lips. Slowly. Deliberately. Whatever little bits of sarcastic fight remained in your arsenal of witty banter dropped to the tiles below, on a plump bead of water sailing earthward off of Peter’s eyelashes.

He never had to say much. The next time his gaze met yours, it burned right through your defenses. He moved his lips to your ear, and breathed, “allow to me make myself more clear, then.”

As he moved back, you looked at him hungrily and nodded. “Please…do,” you whispered.  

What started out as a tender kiss, a caring embrace, escalated like a ball of peat igniting through a fireplace. Your lips tangled together in a crushing kiss. Your breathing sped up, tongues searching for one another. His fingers dug into the muscles of your back. Your perception of the whole scene blurred the boundaries of reality so exquisitely. Your hands slipped down to stroke him ravenously, and he moaned with delight against your open mouth. You continued in this way until he wrapped his arms around you and lifted you off the floor, turned your body around, and sat you back down away from the center of the shower. He confidently took your hands into his own, and pushed your arms above your head, attacking your neck and collarbones with his mouth. Urgently. Marking you. Devouring you. You closed your eyes and felt the hot water bounce off his body onto yours; felt the heat of his breath against your skin, the glorious contrast of the softness of his tongue and the roughness of his stubble. He leaned in ever closer, and you delighted in the feel of his body against yours, the primal sensation of your fingers against the wet hair on his chest, the ecstasy of his arousal hard against your hip, caused only by you. 

As your back pressed against the cold tile wall, you gasped. It was shockingly cold. A stark contrast to the gentle, easy warmth which had so enveloped you. Peter pulled you closer to him, away from the wall, immediately. Instinctively. He was constantly doing that, never allowing you to be in discomfort or pain, if it were at all possible. Your memory flashed back to the weekend when you got the idea to try some bondage, because you’d read a really great story a friend wrote. He said he would try most anything once, but when it came down to it, he just kept saying, “I’ll tie you up, but I can’t hit you. I’m afraid it will hurt! I can’t do it. I don’t want to hurt you. Just let me use my hands.” He was so protective of you, and such a gentle lover. And really, he did a fine job without the stupid paddle anyway.

“It’s just cold. It’s actually _really_ cold! It’s okay,” you explained, smiling.

He nodded and smiled back at you. “I just want you to be comfortable,” he said.

He returned you back to your wall, but this time much more slowly, easing you into the sensation until very quickly, the tile and your hot skin reached a welcome equilibrium. Somehow, the two of you had mastered the art of shower sex. It wasn’t immediate. Oh, no, most certainly not. Your height difference had caused more than a little frustration, and more than a lot of laughter over the course of your experimentation. But at this point, you both knew the moves. A leg here. An arm around here for support. Up on the toes there, but resting against his body there to take the weight. You’d done this in hotel showers around the world now: New York, Paris, Sydney, Amsterdam, Rome. Venice. Florence. Now that you thought of it, you’d had a lot of sex in Italy in general. But that was for another story, you supposed. Your own bathroom at home as well, though on holiday, it was automatic.

So there you would go, ready to assume your favorite pose, but Peter slowed you down with a lamenting hiss. “Soon enough,” he explained, flashing you his blue eyes, pupils vast with desire. He pinned your body back against the wall, cradling your head in his left hand, holding it there comfortably, braced and unable to bump against the unforgiving tile. You wrapped your right arm around him, holding him, adoringly. He kissed you purposefully. His lips firm against yours, pressing against you, releasing you just as slowly. Lingering dramatically just out of your reach. It was in this artful pause that you’d wandered away to the other world to which making love to him would take you. Your eyes were still closed when you felt his right hand slip down between your legs, and his kiss return to you, taking your breath.

He worked on you teasingly, watching your eyes as he touched you. Reacting to you. So intent on giving you pleasure. Generously, massaging you, wrinkling his eyes and biting his lip when you’d cry out. He held you in his hand in so many ways.

You needed him. You told him so. He kept your head cradled safely away from the hard wall as he slipped himself inside you. The rest of your body rocked against the tiles, softly, then harder. A magnificent stretch to fit all of him elicited in you a pang of ecstasy and an orgasmic sound to match. Your back pushed hard against the tiles, and finally softer again. Rising and falling with his. The cocoon of white noise and comforting steam surrounded you like a cloud. You called out his name. You took his face into your hand and told him just how amazing he felt, foreheads pressed together. He swallowed hard, veins forming tensely at his temple. He whispered that he loved you. He bit your lip and gave your ass a desperate squeeze.

You had a tendency to close your eyes or turn your face when you came. But that was largely before you met Peter. He wanted to watch. He pressed his lips so close to your ear that you could just feel them move as he spoke, “Stay with me, love. I want to see you. Show me what I do to you. I want to make you come apart.” And so it was, as your body shuddered against your lover’s, in his kiss. In his arms. Locked in the depths of his sea glass gaze. He held onto you, sheltering you, anchoring you, giving you the courage to completely come apart and the safety to do it with abandon. This was the crux of your relationship which played itself out in the microcosm of sexual expression.

You took a deep breath and closed your eyes, letting your face fall forward against his chest for a moment, listening to his heart pound. You steadied yourself back to your previous position and smiled at him, pulling his face back to yours to whisper your own commands, “Your turn,” you said, voice low and dark, “Come for me, Peter. I want all of you… Give it to me?” You held him there close, watching him lose himself completely in your sex, filling you deeply.

Oh, how you needed him. All of him, all for you; none to share with anyone who recognized him in a restaurant. No one to impose a call time to wake up early for, and no one to suggest mucking about in the cold woods overnight. This was all that mattered; this, right here, in this moment.

A long holiday weekend would suit you just fine.


	3. Chapter 3

You tossed your plush white towel to the top of the wicker bin in the corner and poured yourself into your jeans, standing before that great ornate mirroring. You wrestled on a bra, a comfortable silk and lace number, which never failed to make you feel a touch more feminine.

Behind you, Peter browsed through the wardrobe, quickly filing through the army of Paul Smith t-shirts from which he’d shaken the nonexistent wrinkles and placed on hangers the day before. He was so meticulous with his clothing, which was a trait which you had to admit you enjoyed, even if it did seem a funny contrast to the bold and carefree manner with which he approached so many other things in life. You pulled the hair tie from the top of your head and casually slingshotted it over to the bathroom counter as your locks sprung free and cascaded down your shoulders. One quick shake of the mane, and you made your way into the bedroom to join your lover, who by now stood before the window gazing out at the cityscape beyond, so casually handsome in dark jeans and a pale blue t-shirt. 

“It’s a lovely day,” you said, optimistically, while sitting down on the bed to peruse the room service menu for a quick breakfast.

“It is,” he replied with a hesitance which you could not place. He continued after a pause, “it’s just still so grey and kind of… I don’t know, dreary.”

“Is it?” you absentmindedly questioned, mind fixed on the possibility of some kind of omelet.

He continued the conversation with himself as he surveyed his hometown from the surreal confines of a luxury hotel suite. Since when did he need to get a hotel in Glasgow? Had it always been this grey? He placed a finger to his thin lips and furrowed his brow. He wasn't sure exactly what it was he was even looking at anymore.

“Would you like to get out of here?” he asked, turning to face you.

“Sure! I’m hungry anyway. Let’s get some breakfast,” you said with a smile.

He sat down next to you on the bed and placed a gentle kiss on your lips.

“I meant really out of here. Let’s get a car and drive,” he suggested with a single raised eyebrow. As you smiled in response to the positively impish expression on his face, he pushed you over and down onto the bed with a playful hug. “What do you say?” he asked. His eyes sparkled with boyish charm which belied his age.

He wrapped his arm around you and pulled you close to his chest, lying face to face on your sides atop the intricate monochromatic brocade of the silky duvet. His long and lean, sinewy forearm pressed warmly against the bare skin of your upper back as he slid it upward to brush your hair up and away from your face. His hand, at once tender and strong, came to rest, gently curling around the back of your neck. You felt adored by him. Often, you did. Cherished. As if every person who had ever looked at you in this manner before had been forgotten. Erased. Supplanted.

You tucked your arm beneath his as he held you there, safely enfolded, and placed your hand against the side of his face. Oh, how you loved this face. You traced the length of his cheekbone with your fingers. Grazed the scruffy stubble forming along his jaw. He closed his eyes and relaxed into your hand, faintly nuzzling you back. Entire worlds lived in this face. Untold lifetimes of possibility sat, waiting for just the moment to unfurl, to reveal themselves in his craft. You outlined the form of his nose and let your fingers dance across his lips. Those lips which could bring you so much. Kind smiles across a room. Words of comfort in your darkest moods. Mind-bending pleasure which the two of you would keep as secret from the rest of the world. You kissed them in knowing gratitude.

He dreamily opened his blue green eyes and smiled at you. Into you. His fingers brushed the base of your skull, sending a shiver through your soul.

“Where you do want to go?” you asked him in a near whisper.

He leaned in toward your face, though the space was scarcely vast enough to allow it, much less warrant it, and whispered back, “I would go anywhere at all with you.”

You smiled broadly in reply and added, “As long as they have breakfast.”

He wrinkled his entire face in a laugh and assured you that you would get some on your way out. He kissed your shoulder before letting go of the embrace, and rolling onto his back to stare up at the ceiling.

“I know it isn’t saying much for a trip to Glasgow if I wake up on the second day and ask you to get dressed and leave Glasgow, but we’ve seen my old haunts. We hung out at the gallery, had drinks, had the only food I miss. All the people we were with last night…. They’re what I love here. They’re all I really miss,” he explained, near apologetically.

“Yeah, I can understand that,” you concurred, and anyway you welcomed the spirit of adventure in a road trip.

“I asked you here for a reason, darling,” he said, and your heart leapt into your stomach upon receipt of those words. He continued, “I wanted you to be able to relax. It’s meant to be a holiday, and you never get any breaks. See? You’re jumpy even now, and we’ve done nothing but relax so far,” he said.

You had to agree. You work hard, and you never allow yourself the chance to completely unwind. (He really didn’t need to know the specific reason why you had jumped just then.) There’s always, always something that needs to be done. Perhaps he did have to remove you to another country and take your phone away in order to accomplish that.

He continued, “And if I know you, then you’ll have to get out of a city. How about we drive up to Loch Lomond?”

* * *

 

Within the hour, you’d gotten a fantastic brunch which you had eaten in bed, whilst Peter walked around the room on his phone getting cars rented and country houses arranged, intermittently stopping to steal kisses and bites from your overcrowded plates.

Before you knew it, you were on the road. Less than an hour up A82, first along the river, and eventually into the mountainside, leaving anything grey behind.

Not even 47 kilometers, and a planet away. You could nearly feel yourself transform beside these visions of the countryside, gazing across the car at Peter's driving and singing and looking over at you full of love. All wrinkly eyes and wrinkling nose. Raspy laughter and heavy enraptured sighs. You were looking at the trees and mountains but he only saw you.

“Before we fly back, we’ll have to stop and see my sister again at her house. She said she's put all kinds of new stuff in her garden,” he said.

“I know! I saw. It looks really good,” you replied, lazily looking out the window. When you turned back to look at Peter, he replied with a look of confusion.

“She had it on her Facebook a few weeks back,” you explained.

He shook his head dismissively, and groaned, “You know I'm away from all of that.”

“I know! I planned your entire birthday party on my wall! In plain view,” you exclaimed.

Your laugh was met with only a handsome smirk.

He quipped, “And anyway, is it is book or is it a wall? You see why I'm rubbish at it. It doesn’t make any sense. I have many books... None of which contains a wall.”

You giggled and triggered his inner, erstwhile outer, stand-up comedian.

“Well, it's true!” he demanded. “I thought it was meant to be a yearbook, like for school. And now old people are showing each other flower arrangements and puppies.”

“It did start off for kids at uni, yes...” you countered, “and oy, Capaldi. Watch out who you’re calling old people.”

“My high school had a book and it was just fine. It was better! Because it had my art in it,” he retorted, punctuating his fact with a sticking-out of his tongue.

“Your wall could have your art, you know, if you got one,” you said with a laugh at his ridiculous visage.

He snapped his attention back to the serious matter of driving and responded, “It does! You had it framed, remember?”

You closed your eyes and shook your head in mock dismissal, smoothed your shirt down across your hips, and smiled, easily and genuinely. It seemed the plan was beginning to work.


	4. Chapter 4

What is it about that feeling we get when we arrive at our destination at the conclusion of a road trip? You’d never been able to give it a proper name -- that sensation of giddy anticipation entangled with purposefulness. Your mind immediately listed the steps you’d take once the car finally ceased to move: bags, don’t leave those sunglasses up there, throw this takeaway cup out… he can check in right over there. It always felt like the last day of school before summer break, but maybe for grownups. Peter wasn’t much of a grownup.

 _“Oooooooooh, you’ll take the high road and I’ll take the low road, and I’ll be in Scotland befooooooore ye….”_ He belted out.

You shook your head and smiled.

 _“Where me and my true love will never meet againnnnnnnnn,”_ he continued, voice increasingly louder.

You put your Ray Bans back on and pointed to the correct area to park.

He complied with your wordless direction whilst entertaining himself with an impromptu fermata, then abruptly fell silent as he turned off the ignition.

“Come on, love, you know you want to finish it with me,” he offered, hands out to you, as if tossing you the invisible opportunity.

You smiled and nodded, because it’s a great song, and who could say no to that face, anyway.

 _“On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Loooooomond!”_ you both crooned, dramatically.

Peter removed his specs, tucked them into his pocket ceremoniously, and declared, “ _Now_ it’s a holiday.”

Turns out he was right, too. The place was magical. As much as you’d looked forward to Glasgow, it did now seem exceedingly grey. The little cottage you had for the remainder of the weekend even felt magical, despite its nearly cartoonish Scottishness. (Truly, part of the ceiling was plaid. The ceiling. Was that necessary?) The bed was extremely comfortable, however, and the view was unreal.

As you stood outside the bedroom, on a little decked seating area overlooking the loch, you felt appropriately small when framed by the mountains and clouds overhead. You sent a text back home to your daughter to let her know you intended to truly unplug; to text or call Peter if there was an emergency. Once she replied with love and emoticons, you turned off your phone and tucked it away. It was unsettling just how disconnected such an innocuous action could make you feel.

Peter emerged from inside the cottage to join you, stopping directly behind you, and wrapping his strong, warm arms around your waist. He rested his head on your shoulder, and nuzzled into the place where it met your neck. He kissed the very spot after a few long and adoring breaths into your skin, which sent waves of warmth through you. You shifted to turn and face him, and he kept his fingers on your waist, hitching up your shirt to expose a little skin as you moved. You tipped your face upward to kiss him, straining a bit up onto your toes. He leaned into you, closing his eyes and savoring the taste and the feel of your lips. As he opened them once more, it was he who was breathless. He looked down into your eyes, and out at the water. Back into your eyes, with a warm flush in his cheeks.

“I love you,” he divulged, in the softest of voices, gently raspy, and thickly accented, “I think that’s the biggest understatement in the world.” It was absolutely true, and it was written all over his face.

You slipped your hand up to tousle the curls which lay against the back of his head, and guided him back to your kiss with a simple declaration, “I love you too.”

A knock on the cottage door broke you from your dream state. Peter raised a knowing eyebrow and excused himself from the deck. He had to go and collect the picnic basket he had ordered.

* * *

 

You reclined under a gradient azure sky, with your head against his chest, angled away from his lanky body to form a “T” on the faded plaid blanket you brought down from the cupboard in your room.

“Dragon… and that one’s a Chinese dragon. Like in a New Year’s parade,” he explained as he motioned to the west. You nodded and smiled amusedly.

“This one looks like Elvis, I think,” you added.

Peter squinted excitedly and asked you to take his hand and show him the right direction.

“This one. Just… there,” you said, taking his long fingers into your hand and pointing the way, “can’t you see his pompadour?”

He laughed gently, his eyes wrinkling as he replaced his arm to create a pillow back behind his head, and offered, “What are those round bits on him there? I think he looks more like steampunk Elvis.”

“Steampunk Elvis,” you repeated with a snort, “Aye, that’s who it is.” You shook your head, took a deep and cleansing breath and exhaled it sharply, gazed up into the seemingly endless heavens, and you smiled.

He lovingly ran his fingers through your hair and said, “I wish I could tell you just how good it is to see you relax like this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you really completely relaxed, not truly. You needed this, my darling.”

“One day in the country isn’t going to undo multiple years of tension, Peter,” you said.

“It can’t bloody hurt,” he replied, stroking your temple.

The two of you sat in silence for a while, just being still. Just being together. Feeling the warmth of the summer sun on your skin; feeling the gentle caress of the wind, and breathing in the crisp air, heavy with heather. You could feel yourself unfold. Piece by piece. Muscles untangling, and nerves alive. Your brain felt like it was emerging from under a veil of fog which was burning off in layers.

“That’s an angry sheep,” Peter blurted through your waking meditation, “and that one… that one is a drunk sheep. I hope he doesn’t go and try to talk to that other one up there.”

“They all sort of look like sheep, baby. They’re clouds. You can do better than that,” you teased.

“That one under the drunk sheep looks like Peter Cushing riding a unicycle,” he retorted, cheekily, bracing himself for the glomping tackle of a hug you had already begun.

As you landed atop his chest, his arms wrapped around you securely, and you found your lips centimeters from his.

“What am I going to do with you?” you inquired, as you ran your fingers through his curls.

He looked back at you so warmly, with the faintest hint of a smile in his eyes.

“I mean, I have a few ideas,” he replied, remaining completely deadpan.

“You…” you broke the stalemate immediately with a smile and said, “you’re such a little…”

He burst out laughing and rolled you backward onto the blanket before you had a chance to finish your thought. He kept his long arms wrapped against you, tucked under your shoulder blades, with his hands supporting the back of your head – a familiar and intimate posture usually reserved for your bed – and kissed you.

The closeness was enough to freeze time. By the time he came up for air, you were his. In this place, seemingly so full of magic. You nearly hated yourself for a moment when you characterized it as “romantic,” but it actually was. All the little things, all those truncated thoughts that seemed to flit away into the ether before you could grasp them and make them real. All the tingly emotions you had in your bed at home late on a Tuesday night. The ones you wished you could keep forever, and only succeeded in falling asleep inside. Here, they were tangible. Here, you had time. And there: there they all sat, in the diaphanous clouds of the Trossachs sky, in the interminable blue of his eyes. Here you could drink of them. Here you could taste your life. 


	5. Chapter 5

You passed the afternoon quietly, eventually gathering up your blanket and reloading the picnic basket with its now empty contents once a few bugs had become interested in the bowl that had earlier held fruit, and forced you to call it a day, but not before Peter had produced a sketchbook from his pocket and had drawn a whole host of little doodles while you played with the tallest blades of grass that curled up and over the edge of the faded green and tan tartan.

The silence between you was so effortless. It was a phenomenon which you cherished. Those with whom raucous noise came easily were your favourite people, but the one with whom silence was equally enjoyable was truly something special.

Every now and again, you would ask him random questions, as they bubbled to the surface of your consciousness, which was itself on holiday.

“Peter, what did your childhood smell like?” you mused.

“Tea,” he replied, “tea and petrol.”

“What are you drawing now?” you inquired.

“You, darling. And those flowers over there by the tree,” he explained, smiled, and showed you the page.

“What are you most afraid of?” you asked.

He thought a moment, never stopping, but only slowing, in the production of his work. “Of letting people down,” he finally offered: “of letting the people who depend on me down.”

You processed his answer, appreciative of the honesty, and felt it fitting from the person who actually never let any of you down.

“And werewolves. I’m still only about 95% sure that they are not real,” he continued with a half-smile.

You let your head fall all the way back against the ground, and closed your eyes. You could hear the soft crash of the water as it lazily lapped onto the craggy shore below. You could hear the wind rustle the leaves in the trees. You could hear your own heartbeat, if you allowed yourself. The sound of pencil upon paper reminded you that you were not alone. 

You watched him work, sitting on the ground with his ubiquitous sketchbook, scratching away at the page: his lips just slightly parted, his brow just slightly wrinkled. Serious, and handsome in those spectacles. Watching him draw was a physical representation of the paradox you often found him to be. At once a capable and self-assured, dashing, confident man and at the same time, sitting in the grass with long, gangly legs crossed under him, still the same boy who wiled away hours doodling daleks and other monsters years ago.

He looked down in recognition of your observing him, flipped the page, and began a new piece with visible determination.

“What’s your favourite colour?” you asked him.

“All of them,” he said, “how can one choose?”

You smiled and thought it was the answer of an artist at heart.

“TARDIS blue,” he continued, “if I’m being honest. What is your favourite season?”

“Autumn,” you replied.

He continued to sketch, and acknowledged your answer, speaking slowly and measuredly, the way he always did whilst sketching, “Autumn. The most gothic of seasons. Perfect for Halloween and scary movies, dressing up in coats and scarves… and sipping scotch by the fire. Perfect for us.”

You smiled and nodded, “Aye. Perfect for us.”

He looked down at you and winked.

“What are you drawing now?” you inquired.

He tipped the book toward you and proudly announced, “Steampunk Elvis.” 

You laughed and rested your hand on his knee, stroking it softly with your thumb. He finished your souvenir with a Sailor Jerry tattoo-style banner emerging from the sky behind Steampunk Elvis’ geared top-hatted head, which bore the David Bowie lyrics he had recited to you after one of your first dates, “You and I have a mutual vow. We both like young, and we both like loud,” and in the corner he signed it with a cartoon heart and the letter “P.”

* * *

 

By the time you returned to your cottage, the sun had begun the long descent down the western sky behind, casting shadows onto the loch. You flopped yourself down across the fluffy, welcoming bed, dropping your shoes to the floor beneath. Peter looked at you in mock disapproval, as if to declare you totally useless.

“Are you going to lay down all day and night?” he joked.

You patted the bed next to yourself and nodded.

He chuckled and flung his long body down by your side, leaning onto his side, and propping his head with his hand.

“Would you like to get some dinner over at the lodge?” he asked, and walked his fingers up your torso playfully.

“Don’t we need a reservation?” you wondered.

The unwaveringly humble man you so adored allowed himself a moment of braggadocio, and sent you into a minor fit of laughter with only an expression of implied absurdity at your question.

“I think they would let us in,” he insisted.

And so you agreed. It was close enough that you could simply walk up the paved path to the larger resort up the road. You would go, after a quick change of clothes and a touch of makeup. He took off his shirt and stood in front of the bathroom mirror to shave. Or try to shave, while you made exactly zero attempts to keep your hands off him as he did so.

You easily got a great table in a quiet corner, aside the wall of panoramic windows overlooking the water. A few people clearly recognized him, but made no fuss. It seemed that everyone there was intent on enjoying their own romantic evenings, sitting in happy couplings around the room. Two ladies smiled at him for a long time, until one noticed his looking back briefly, and kicked her partner in the shin. At a second table, a young man who appeared a little flush from drink attempted to signal Peter’s attention using only highly animated eyebrow gestures, but he quickly tired himself out as his date giggled into her salad.

Your meal was fantastic, bursting with the flavors of fresh, seasonal local ingredients. Peter had ordered a bottle of champagne, which seemed to appear from thin air, thanks to the expert service of the staff. He did that a lot, actually. He seemed to enjoy perpetuating the image that he was some kind of nerd, but when you dated him, he was most often very smooth. Things just materialized when you were out, and you never saw or heard him ask. It was the same way with the bill.

“I don’t think I can eat another bite,” you said with a contented sigh, and enjoyed a sip of champagne.

“I disagree,” Peter replied, and handed you a card listing the evening’s desserts.

You scanned the list quickly, lips never breaking from your sip, and once you returned your glass to the table, you happily surrendered, “Pick any two.”

You looked out over the water as you waited for your newest treats to appear. Now the sun was finally beginning to set, throwing wild and colorful displays of light across the mountains and down across the loch. Across your own table, your boyfriend looked just as otherworldly. You supposed that maybe he actually didn’t. He often insisted that he was “just Peter.” That he was not actually handsome; that he just had a memorable face. He meant this, but surely it couldn’t be so. You were just in love, perhaps. You assigned values to him which were of your own invention, for your own use, to your own need. As you nodded to the waiter in acceptance of a final refill of champagne, the side of your eye caught a surreptitious flash emanating from a quickly hidden iPhone. Nah. He was the real deal. That lady just took his picture, because she knew you were right. He smiled down into his chest sweetly, and gave the accidental paparazza a small wave.

“You’re popular,” you teased him, quietly proud, as you always were in these situations.

He looked at you long enough to ensure you understood the weight of his intention, and said simply, “I am the one sitting with a star tonight.”

Again, there it was: the way he could melt your heart into a pile of warmed butter. You felt a little blush fall across your cheek, a little warmth flow across your chest, a catch in your throat. You had a sip of champagne.

You feasted on a decadent strawberry and dark chocolate dessert, periodically trading plates with Peter, who originally had something ridiculously delicious in vanilla, and chatted. He threatened to keep your plate. You protested. You fed him a bite of dark chocolate to avoid letting him take it back. You laughed together. He told you a story about the time he accidentally locked himself inside a women’s dressing room backstage at a club. You told him a story about the time you were underage, and a friend pressed a still wet stamp to the top of your hand to get you into a bar, and then the bouncer refused to let her in due to the smudging, while you walked inside without question. You polished off the last drops of the champagne, and you laughed some more. He told you about the time they lost his Granny in a cupboard under the stairs. You swore you couldn’t breathe if he told you anything else. Peter said his face hurt as he wiped tears from his eyes from laughing so hard.

The quickly dying last light of the day hung greedily in the air as you finally walked the path back to your cottage, though it was nearly ten o’clock at night. Just another magical quirk about the place, courtesy of the northerly latitude. Endearing now, but less so around 4:30am when you would roll your face over and down into your pillow to avoid the inhumanely early sunrise.

As he unlocked the door and held it open for you to enter, he followed you in and told you not to go far. He immediately busied himself with gathering some items into a small bag before appearing in your doorway with a mischievous grin.

“Let’s go for a wander,” he implored.

“Alright!” you practically cheered, “I’m in.”


	6. Chapter 6

Just like that, you set off on an adventure, the likes of which you rarely had occasion to indulge at home. The countryside was plunged in proper darkness, save for a scattering of twinkly fishing lamps and fairy lights along balconies. The air itself smelled of summer, all damp woods and algae held tightly to reeds. Blooming flowers and sun cream, and the thinly-veiled ripeness of strawberries clinging to your fingers like ghosts.

You made your way down the winding cobbled path to the shore of the loch. Peter motioned for you to climb onto a lonely public boat dock with him.

“I don’t know… that sign right there says, ‘Danger: Do Not Sit On The Rocks,’ ‘Danger: Do Not Access The Docks After Dark’” you said, with a mocking tone.

“Since when do we read the directions? You and I are rebels. We belong together,” he replied with a recalcitrant smirk, “Let’s go… I will pull you up.”

You took his hand and hoisted yourself onto the forbidden dock, bathed only in moonlight, safely away from the private homes and “B&B’s” you quietly passed on the way. You sat down beside him, at the very end of the structure, legs hanging down toward the loch below. The only sounds you could hear were the buzzing of insects and the gentle crash of the water.

“This is fantastic,” you remarked with genuine awe, awash in the cool air and the absolute romance of your seclusion.

Peter had been messing about with something to his right, hands rustling items in the bag he had placed down on the wooden planks. He turned to place a glass of Glenlivet 15 into your hand, and quickly produced his own to toast you.

“To you, my love,” he announced.

“You are mad,” you replied, beaming, with a Cheshire cat smile.

“Every lover is, in his heart, a madman, and, in his head, a minstrel, dear,” he retorted, and clinked his glass against your own.

“Shakespeare?” you inquired, sipping your whiskey.

“Neil Gaiman,” he explained, “…better than Shakespeare.”

You smiled and looked out at the stars, whose reflections undulated on the surface of the water. You took a deep breath and released it back into the universe with gratitude. Slow drags of your scotch welcomed a warmth across your body. A weight which reminded you that you were alive. The nourishing amber liquid nurtured you as Scotland itself did. The familiar aroma danced its way through your head, freeing you. Releasing you to yourself.

Peter took a long sip from his glass and sat it back down on the dock.

“See, this right here is what I wanted,” he said, “This is what I was trying to invite you to.”

You smiled your understanding and scooted yourself closer, so your thighs touched as you sat side by side. You rested your head against him briefly, and he reached his arm around you to pull you even closer. The two of you sat cuddled together under the entire universe. Stars above and Loch Lomond below. In years to come, you would look back on that night as the one when you realized what you had in Peter. You went on holiday in love with him, but you came back something else. Something more.  

“I didn’t even think about how chilly it gets down here on the water at night,” you mentioned.

Without a word, he took off his jacket and placed it around you. You didn’t necessarily need it, and hadn’t meant to ask for it, but it was so warm, and smelled so perfectly like him, and its weight was a surprising comfort.

“Thank you,” you said, looking up into his eyes with earnest affection.

“You’re very welcome,” he replied, and placed a kiss on the top of your head.

“This is the type of thing I had to get used to, you know,” you told him, “This is why I love you. You’re always thinking of me.”

He kissed you and took both your hands into his own.

“I mean, that’s not the only reason I love you… that sounded selfish. There are a million reasons why I love you,” you rambled.

He kissed you again, squeezing your hands gently.

“Me too,” he said, his voice soft, as if he were telling you a secret.

You looked at him inquisitively, expectantly.

“There are a million reasons why I love you,” he said, his blue eyes nearly twinkling in the moonlight. He tucked the stray hair that the wind had blown free back behind your ear, and studied your face. He let his fingers trace the outline of your cheek, your jaw. He tipped your chin upward to meet his lips, and kissed you.

“You’re different,” he began to explain. “You see things differently than others see them. I absolutely love your heart. I can see that it is scarred…”

A lump formed in your throat and your eyes began to well with emotion as he spoke to you, so gently. He continued to hold on to your hands, only breaking the connection to wipe your face when a tear broke down your cheek.

“You fight so hard to be an optimist, even when it isn’t easy for you. Even when it makes absolutely no sense to be, and when it is really bloody difficult. You’re amazingly brave for that, to me. So many other people are so boring, but you’re different. You see the people who others don’t see, and you reach out your hands to pull them up. You’re a geek. You’re a punk. You’re like me, darling. You and me are the same. Same and different. And I love you,” he said.

You opened your mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Tears started to fall, though you swore you weren’t sad. He just smiled at you, and took you into his arms.

“I am different, too. I've got a million different people in here, and that's why I act. I like to escape from reality, but at the same time I'm obsessed with the truth… and the truth is that I love you with every fiber of my being,” he said, and kissed the top of your head and you smiled into his chest. “Till all the seas gang dry, my dear, and the rocks melt wi’ the sun,” he mused, as you chuckled and nuzzled closer against his t-shirt. “And I will luve thee still my dear, while the sands o’ life shall run.”

You sighed deeply as you returned to sit side by side on the dock, his arm around your shoulder, replacing his jacket to best cover you. You both picked up your glasses once more, and gazed out at the loch.

"I never dreamed I would find love again, and I know you didn't either. Gods, I know you never thought it could be like this. Do you remember that night? In Venice..." he asked, "when we sat out on that little terrace, and I told you I loved you unconditionally?"

You nodded.

"I still don't know why I didn't say it then, but what I had really wanted to say was that I forgave you. For what, precisely, I don't know. But that everything you were still holding onto was okay. It is all okay. I love it. I love you. Flaws and all. I love it all," he said. 

After wiping your eyes, sipping your scotch, and enjoying a long silent pause, you struggled to find the right words to follow all those declarations.

“Peter…” you began, trailing off.

“I know,” he said, and offered you his glass for a toast.

You laughed and clinked your glasses together gently.

“I know, darling,” he simply said.

You spent the next hour on whispers shared in the darkness. On first impressions confessed and on wishes dearly held and on dreams imagined and fulfilled. On art and life and childhoods and death.

As the water rocked the shore and the insects sang you home, there was no other place which you would rather have been. You walked back to your cottage, hand in hand, still wearing that jacket, still breaking into fits of giggles. A little tipsy. A little sleepy. Irrevocably in love.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating updated to Explicit.

Candied citrus. Sweet shortbread. Bitter oak. Warmth. Promise. Heaven. Every time a little different, a little deeper. Each note layering itself upon the one before, each burned upon your memory. He kissed you like he needed your lips to survive. He kissed you until you believed you needed his just the same.

He kissed you in the undulating candlelight of your holiday cottage, in the perfect shelter of his arms, as the moonlight danced across the loch outside your window, and he tasted like whisky and chocolate.   

“Gods, Peter…” you breathed.

He leaned you down into the comfort of the bed. Whispered into your ear. Teased your earlobe with his tongue.

“Oh, I need you…” you told him, eyes slamming shut as the goosebumps shot down your arm.

You felt his smile break against your shoulder as he guided your head to the side, brushed your hair up to the top of the pillow, and gently bit the muscle above your collarbone.

You moaned softly, uncontrollably. His touch drove you mad. Eyes struggling to open, your back arched instinctively, driving your chest into his, your hips hard into him.

“Fuck……” you whispered. He glided his long body atop yours and covered your mouth with his own fervent kiss.

“I’m all yours, darlin’” he confided, in a breathy brogue, returning his attention to your neck.

You let your hand slide down his lean body, down to his hips. You dug your fingers into his muscles. You savored his every slight move, tensing and relaxing against your touch. As he slipped down mere inches to venerate the top of your chest with his lips, you dropped your hand just below the front of his waistband.

“Are you in a hurry, my love?” he gently chided.

You smiled and shook your head, “no.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said softly, looking deeply into your eyes: “Let me savor you.”

You smiled coquettishly, taken slightly aback by his bold request.

“I have been dying to do this all day, and I plan to take my time,” he revealed.

You ran your fingers through his curls, and pulled him into your kiss, giving yourself over completely to him as you released your hold on him.

You watched his beautiful hands deftly remove your shirt. Felt them make easy work of the clasp of your bra. Trusted them to lovingly return you back down onto the bed.

You watched his hands as they slid up the length of your arms, gently pinning your hands over your head. You watched them slide down your body; down your arms again. Gently over your chest and around your ribcage to your back. You felt his hands support your weight as he angled your body upward and into his languorous kisses. You felt them perfectly, adoringly, embrace your breasts and hold them as he worshipped them. His hands were divine – warm and strong, with long lithe fingers. The hands of an artist. Talented hands shaped by the hours of art they have produced, and they knew precisely what to do with every single inch of you. You watched them as he slid them down to your hips, slowly, teasingly. Agonizingly. His tongue followed closely behind.

The heat of his breath against your bare skin kept you acutely aware of all of your senses. He kissed an adoring path across your stomach, from one hip to the other, and back across again, this time slower. Lower. Hooking his fingers into each side of your lacy bikini, and gradually, unhurriedly, revealing slightly more and more of your body.

He sank to his knees and tossed his shirt to the floor in one smooth motion. Of all the many ways you’d seen him, there was little that could compare to those eyes, looking up at you hungrily from between your legs. A tense ball of emotion, of passion, nearly bordering on discomfort, began to grow deep inside you. The way he looked at you. It was so raw. So real, so naked. It almost hurt. He could see you, and you wondered what it was you had always been trying to hide.

He licked his lips, and you found that you couldn’t take your eyes off them. You leaned closer to him, and he rose to meet you, leaning over your body, hands on either side of you, as if you might be his prey. You kissed him forcefully, and watched his eyes flutter closed. You wrapped your fingers around the back of his head and delighted in the tension in his lean muscles.

He whispered breathily, “you are bloody fucking gorgeous.”

You kissed him harder.

Coming up for air, you retorted, “tell me, Peter, what else am I?”

He kissed you once ever so softly, hovering just away from your mouth as he released you, and replied, voice tense and rocky: “you are _mine_.”

You felt your heart speed its pace at the receipt of his words, which were unequivocally true. You swallowed hard and licked your lips as he stared at them. He leaned in for one last teasing kiss, slipping his tongue inside your mouth to dance across your own. He turned his head to the other side, brushing his nose across the tip of yours, and pulled your bottom lip into his mouth so slightly, biting it, and sending explosive sparks of desire down your entire body.

He slid back down between your legs as you reclined back into the pillows as before. He motioned a request for consent to remove the last of your lingerie, and you simply nodded and muttered, “I’m yours.”

You could only pick out some of your thoughts, as he completely transported you elsewhere with his devilish mouth. The ceiling was plaid. You could see that, as the candlelight flickered and cast shadows across the angles of the room. Oh, how you had been wrong about that ceiling. Scottish stuff everywhere. It looked fantastic now. Scottish… Yes. Scottish is good.

Each time you would feel coherent, he would rip it away. With a flick of his tongue, a sleight of his hand. He devoured you appreciatively. The tension in your body – in your very soul, began to harden and pulsate. Peter led you to the edge and stopped. Ran his hands up your thighs and reassured you. Moaned into your ravenous core and drank of you.

You clung to anything you could get into your grasp as the waves of orgasm washed over you: the corner of a pillow, a fistful of bed sheet, Peter’s shoulder. The next time you opened your eyes, they were heavy and vaguely wet, gazing upon dim flickers of blackwatch and your candlelit lover.

He settled down next to you, propped up on his shoulder, wiped his mouth with his forearm, and looking pretty sure of himself with an expression that entertained you endlessly.

“Well, g’night then,” you joked.

He dramatically fell, flat onto his back, and smiled broadly. He closed his eyes and chuckled a bit, before announcing, “Best night ever, then. I regret nothing.”

You climbed on top of him, straddling his hips, and leaning down to kiss his lips. He smiled even as you kissed him, eyes crinkling.

“It is a good night…” you remarked, feeling nowhere near satiated as you looked down at this man. You kissed and sucked your way from his ear down to his shoulder, attacking his neck completely. You delighted in the happy sighs and gentle moans he gave you. You traced the outline of the hollow at the base of his neck where it met his clavicle with your fingers.

Beneath the weight of your body, you could feel his arousal. He would shift and squirm in response to your touch, growing hotter. Harder. More impatient. You kissed his chest carefully, sweetly, running your fingertips across the soft hair and sliding your tongue across his nipple. He gathered your long hair, and held it at the top of your head with one hand while tracing the length of the back of your neck with the other. Fuck. Those hands.

Whatever jokes he liked to make about his age or his body, the truth was that he was hiding an impressive physique beneath those layers of clothing. He never was much for working out, but he had taken up going to the gym since you’d been dating – an inevitable side effect of a highly visible job – and it was beginning to really show.

It was your little secret that touching his stomach would drive him wild, so you placed both your hands flat across it while you moved upward to give him a lazy kiss. One last attack from your lips, licking his hipbone while you got to work undoing his pants was his last straw. He let his arms drop back to his sides in surrender, stretching those long limbs out across the bed.

You hovered above his naked body. A pang of need hit you like a gust of winter air, washing over you and emboldening you, renewing your resolve. He was yours for the taking, and you ravaged him while you reveled in watching him react. Your fingers tugged at his hips and thighs. You nuzzled the trail of hair from his navel downward. After mercifully little fanfare, you licked a wet path up his entire length and took him into your mouth.

“Oh fuck, darlin’,” he gasped, losing his composure, and pressing his head backward into the pillow.

You teased him agonizingly, countering his every response. You triumphed in the giving of yourself to him, in desiring him, needing him. Needing. Him. Accepting him completely, and wishing for more. He was delicious, and he deserved each drop of pleasure.

He furrowed his eyebrows tensely and shook his head slowly, lips parted, and gazed down at you. You felt him throb with a jolt at the sight of your eyes, hiding nothing now. He reached for you, pulling you up on top.

“You are so good…” he groaned, “gods, I can hardly take it.” He kissed your lips, your jaw, your neck, as you wrapped your arms around him.

“You’re… good,” you attempted to reply, though you were slipping back into the world of broken candlelight and heartbeat. “You taste so good…. I want… uhmm… fuck… I want you,” you moaned.

“Show me,” he rasped, and guided your hips over his own.

You held tightly to his hands, fingers pressed into your soft curves, as his body quieted the exquisite ache inside you. You offered yourself to him, body and soul, in your entirety. It was a complete and total surrender, and he graciously accepted. His hands steadied you. His lips sated you. His eyes exalted you. It was a moment of otherworldly perfection, of spiritual glory, amidst flashes of moonlight and the smells of summer.

He wrapped his arms around you and rolled you onto your back, bringing you tenderly face to face. You both slowed when the intimacy of the pose stopped your very breath.

You could feel his heartbeat against his chest. The curtain in front of the open window fluttered when a gust of wind off the loch hit the cottage. The candlelight was thrown into a fanciful dance of light which created the sensation of floating through water or clouds, or space.

“Peter, I’m going to jump off this cliff now. All the good parts of me, and all the bad parts of me…” you whispered.

He leaned in closer, and brushed the side of your nose with his own.

“All of it. No apologies… fresh start. Whatever I leave behind up here is gone, and I’m going to trust you to catch me…” you continued, your own heart positively pounding inside your chest. You felt a thrilling rush of freedom and bravery. “I’m jumping,” you whispered.

“Do it,” he promised, and he caught you in his arms, and in his kiss. Symbolic though it may have been, you never once regretted the leap.

Your bodies entwined and pressed each other toward ecstasy. He moved inside you in perfect joy, in love. In perfection. You craved him. Your body strained toward him, opened to him. You felt giddy as he rocked you to your core, gently thrusting you upward, slowly, then faster. Shaking your very foundation. Pounding himself into you as your fingers tore at his sinewy arms and back. You trembled under him as you found your release, moaning his name again and again. He rested his head against your shoulder and muttered, “fuck… darlin’… yes,” as he slammed into you hard, spilling into you in waves.

You lay together, catching your breath. Wiping your sweat. Whispering compliments. Outside the window, you could make out the stars sleeping above Loch Lomond.

At home, you’d usually yawn, or make a play to get up and walk into the restroom, so Peter kissed you and made some jokes about how you still had too much energy.

“You can have me again,” he said, lips a whisper away from your ear, sending a ghost of hot breath across your skin.

“I am more than satisfied,” you said through giggles, though his voice never failed to bubble your desire up to the surface.

“I’m not done here tonight so long as you can still laugh… and walk,” he explained, with a single raised eyebrow.

“Ohh,” you replied. It was fair to say that you were impressed.

He rolled over and reached down under the bed and produced a very suspicious looking velvet bag, from which he presented you a petite vibrating oval.

“Did you _fly_ with that?” you inquired in amusement.

He shot you a knowing glare and retorted, “not after your little fiasco last summer, Ms. Sydney Airport. Medical device, my arse. I still can’t believe they let you keep it!”

You laughed and covered your face with your arms, pressing your palms flat to the headboard above you. “I thought it was quick thinking!” you offered.

“Anyway, no. If you think there is anything that I don’t know where to get in the middle of the night in Glasgow, then you’ve hardly been listening these past few years,” he explained, proudly.

You most definitely could still laugh, and were intrigued by his proposal, so you reached for the egg.

“Uh uh,” he demanded, pulling his hand away, shaking his head, and blowing out the bedside candle, “I’ve got you.”

What began as a quick dessert turned very rapidly into one of those best meals you ever had while on vacation.  You were barely clutching the surface of the planet as Peter teased you. Toyed with you. Bloody owned you there under the Scottish moon.

Something in you had held you back, even just imperceptibly, for your entire life before that night. Something proper maybe. Something demure. Or something fearful of the leap. It was all gone. It was the most exhilarating thing you had ever felt.

You were writhing against him, panting, bucking, begging. He kept his body close to yours, able to kiss you, able to look into your eyes, with his long arms easily working on your clit. You couldn’t believe the things you were feeling, couldn’t put it into words. It was a strength of sensation the likes of which you had never experienced, even in your lifetime of exploration alone. All heat and light and pure ecstasy. You cried out to him, pulling him closer to you.

He told you to feel it. To take it, and to know it was from him.

“Oh, love… Don’t fight it. Go with it…. Ride it,” he commanded, rolling the ‘r’ in his thick brogue.

He talked you through it: "This is how you deserve to feel. I _mean_ every. Single. Move. I mean every sensation. The way you feel right now is how I feel about you… This is how much I love you."

You broke into a billion pieces in his arms. Collapsing, expanding, exploding across the universe like a dying nebula. You were a supernova. You held onto him for your very life until you could finally breathe again, your body as heavy and relaxed, as calmed and as serene as Loch Lomond.

“That’s better…” Peter said.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Susanne, whom I love. I am eternally sorry.

"No..." you protested, as the vermillion sun pierced the perfect darkness of your bedroom. The singular heavenly ray which broke through the tiny gap in the window dressings found its way to your eyes like an enemy laser beam. You moved your head enough to avoid the assault, and searched for a clock. Aye, 4:42am. This would not do.

"I'll save you," Peter mumbled, and playfully covered your eyes with his hands.

"It's so _early_ ," you lamented, "I hate Scotland..."

"Me too," he said with a light, sleepy laugh.

"I don't mean that," you backtracked, attempting to shield your face with blankets. "I love Scotland. But right now I also hate it. I love it and I hate it," you resigned.

"Me too," he said contentedly, and motioned for you to switch places with him. He wrapped his arms around you as the big spoon, and let the sunlight hit him in the back for a few more hours of slumber.

You would spend your last full day in the country much the way you'd spent your first. Lying on your backs admiring the clouds, kissing your boyfriend on a walk in the quiet hills, sneaking out after dark for a drink on the docks.

Of course on Sunday, you'd stay in bed until nearly lunchtime first: talking and having tea, reading and whispering and giggling. Asking each other more questions, and bonding over shared answers to the most trivial of preferences.

"You get me, Capaldi," you'd say.

"We just have impeccable tastes," he'd reply.

Who knew it had been important to you which version of Sweet Jane, or of Dracula, he liked best?

And this time when you threw that blanket across the grass, you asked him to lay his head down in your lap. He came up with precious few cloud designs that afternoon, as he spent half his time with his eyes closed, enjoying the feeling of your fingers running through his hair instead.

"This is heavenly," he muttered through a blissful smirk.

"Get used to it," you replied, as he took your hand and kissed it gratefully.

This was also the day when you learned you were both rubbish hikers, for you barely made it a third of the way up your planned path before meandering around into some tree cover. You never spoke the words aloud, but you were most definitely at least a little bit lost for a while. It was no bother though, as you found a tree that was perfectly suited to lean back against while the two of you made out like teenagers in a forgotten school hallway.

You passed on another trip to the restaurant in the lodge, and took the car out to a little chip shop for dinner and a pint. No makeup today. No phones. No cares in the world. It did you good.

And once the sun set on your romantic holiday for the last time, Peter invited you back out for one more wander. You took your scotch, and you hoisted yourselves back up atop the same dock, but there were no tears. No angst. No confessions and no forgiveness. No promises uttered, though there was probably a lifetime's worth of those unspoken. You laughed together. Told jokes. Had just the smallest bit too much to drink, and felt like the night would never, ever end.

You didn't even make it back to your cottage before you were lying on your picnic blanket on the side of the loch, in the shadow of your private dock, under the endless summer sky. He kissed your lips and ran his long fingers down your neck. He counted the freckles on your thighs and traced their constellations, comparing your splendor to the universe above. You made love to him under the glorious starry sky, beside the gentle waves, in the magical dark of a country night, and you belonged only to him.

The next morning came too early, once again, and you packed up the car to head back to Glasgow, and ultimately, home. You sipped strong coffee as you watched the sun glint off the water as Peter drove you away.

He turned on the radio, which was tuned to a tiny local station which cracked and popped as it broadcast old classics.

"Oooooooooh, you’ll take the high road and I’ll take the low road, and I’ll be in Scotland befooooooore ye….”

You beamed at each other and began to sing along with this gift of kismet.

“Where me and my true love will never meet againnnnnnnnn..."

He interjected, "Oh, I disagree with you there actually," and you smiled.

You sang together, brightly and clearly, “On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond."

 

* * *

 

Epilogue

You had always loved that song, and it would not be the last time you heard it.

It would be playing softly in your bedroom on the Boxing Day morning when it snowed on the home you shared in London. When he surprised you with the one gift he seemed to have forgotten to give you when the house was full of people the night before, and proposed to you in bed.

It would play outside the art gallery where you would marry, as a joyful up-tempo rendition on bagpipes. And he would sing it in the car when you drove back to this place with both your adult daughters as they cringed together in solidarity.

You would come back to this very spot many times, because Peter was nothing if not sentimental: on your first wedding anniversary, and again on your tenth. You'd hike these hills while he hummed the tune to mark your twentieth anniversary, even though he would spend the better part of the afternoon complaining about random aches and pains after that one.

And every time, you'd love that song more than the time you'd heard it before.


End file.
